Why Beyoncé and Coldplay's Latest Music Video Is an Example of Cultural Appropriation

"Hymn For The Weekend" opens with a lingering shot of a peacock. In the next minute, we see temples, a small boy covered in blue paint who is meant to represent the god Shiva, holy men, and children blowing colour in the air as they play Holi on the streets of Bombay. That's just the first minute of the video.

As I watched, I felt a sense of déjà vu. Every single frame seemed familiar, and then I realized I’d seen it all before. The India represented in the video is the India of Slumdog Millionaire. It's strikingly similar to Iggy Azalea's video for "Bounce" and Diplo's video for "Lean On." It's a white person's fever dream of what India looks like. I imagined a million wide-eyed white people watching this video, chorusing "Wow, India is so colourful." The video is full of fire-breathers and fireworks, brown hands clasped in prayer over lamps, and slum children dancing joyously because they are rich in spirit. It’s all camp and chaos, a kaleidoscope of whirling parts that never add up to an accurate whole.

It's not that we don't dance in the streets: part of the reason I love my culture is that we do on occasion. But that's such a tiny part of who we are, and that’s the only part the West ever chooses to depict. That depiction is the reason white people still ask if I've ever charmed a snake. The India of "HFTW" is an India that bears very little relation to the real India, which is complex beyond belief. In the real India, Bollywood is a billion-dollar industry that is better signified by glossy studio banners than decaying projectors or peeling movie posters. In the real India, many of the holy men are hustlers and the poverty isn't necessarily picturesque. But it's so much easier, so much simpler to talk about India as an exotic land where sadhus do the Great Indian Rope Trick, because that's what white people are comfortable with.

Imagine somebody taking a few pieces out of a jigsaw puzzle and walking away, confidently insisting they don't need the rest to make up the whole picture. That's exactly what this video is. Which isn't that surprising -- bands like Coldplay are repeat offenders when it comes to cultural appropriation and misrepresentation. (Coldplay's 2011 video for "Princess of China" is a perfect example of this, and even goes a step further by conflating Chinese and Japanese cultures.)

One common defense of appropriation is that it is appreciation. However, appreciation respects the complexity of the original culture. "HFTW" doesn't feel appreciative or respectful. It's lazy to position Kathakali dancers in the same frame as North Indian dancers when the former are South Indian. It's callous to use religious iconography as a cool background for a white rock band. It's disrespectful not to give South Asian people starring roles in their own stories. In every video like "HFTW," they're extras or backup dancers. Just as in Iggy's and Diplo's videos, there is no Indian front and center. Actual Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor (a powerhouse in her own right) could easily have been given as much screen time as Beyoncé, who plays the Bollywood actress in the video. Instead, Kapoor is relegated to the role of an extra: blink and you'll miss her two-second appearance.

India has always been positioned as a shallow vessel that exists for Westerners to "find themselves," à la Eat Pray Love. Throughout history, white people have never been comfortable affording us our own stories, or acknowledging the complexity of brown culture. Our culture is merely a series of cool symbols stripped of meaning and borrowed by other people. Within that painful context, I wish songs like "HFTW" tried a little harder to include us as well as taking from us. To represent us in ways the world never sees. There's so much more than peacocks.